Laura Bell Bundy

A fixture of American musical theater during the mid-late 2000s, Laura Bell Bundy sported a resume that could have easily been mistaken for a laundry list of most covetable Broadway roles. Bundy gravitated to stage performance at the tender age of nine in regional and Manhattan-area theater, in such productions as Ruthless! The Musical, but achieved greatest prominence on the Great White Way for originating the role of Amber von Tussle in the Tony Award-winning musical of Hairspray (2002), loosely adapted from the 1988 John Waters comedy of the same name. Subsequent stage roles included that of Glinda in the musical Wicked (adapted from the Gregory Maguire novel) and valley girl Elle Woods in Legally Blonde: The Musical. Bundy later appeared in Legally Blonde the Musical: The Search for the New Elle Woods, a competition-themed reality series that - per its title - depicted the contest of the various tryouts hoping to be selected as the successor for the Blonde role. Alongside her theatrical work, Bundy also built up a substantial array of feature film portrayals in outings including Life with Mikey (1993), Jumanji (1996) and Dreamgirls (2006). She also essayed a role on the daytime soap The Guiding Light and embarked on a recording career beginning with the release of the country and western album Longing for a Place Already Gone.

~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide